The Douglas Fir. 177 



nate field of grain. Phacelia tanacetifolia, with its heads of pale 

 blue or rather laveuder-colored flowers, lends color to the bushes 

 that border the roadside. Chia (Salvia carduacea) grows in profu- 

 sion in the fields, and is conspicuous for its large, lavender-colored 

 flowers. Ba^rias and CEnotheras, popcorn flowers, Amsinckias, 

 Lupins, and Gilias form alternate spots of orange, lemon-j^ellow, 

 blue or purple amid the green of wild oats, alfilaria, clover and 

 grasses. Spilies of brilliant flowers of a species of Delphinium, of a 

 rich Berlin blue, rise among the clumps of bushes, over which also 

 the delicate Megarrhiza vine with its clusters of white flowers trail 

 in profusion. 



Last but not least among this vast garden of flowers rise the 

 Spanish bayonets on everj'^ side, lil^e sentinels of war, on the western 

 margin of desolate sand, rendering due tribute to spring in clusters 

 of waxy-white, bell-shaped flowers, that lend their sweetness to the 

 busy bee. 



Beyond stretch the iron rails, where no flowers are, and where 

 wind and sand reign supreme. C. R. Orcutt. 



THE DOUGLAS FIE. 



(From Garden and Forest, iv. 205.) 



The Douglas Fir, from many points of view, is one of the most 

 interesting trees of the American forest. Its monotypic character, 

 its probably recent development in its distinct existing form, for the 

 record of the ages has not divulged the secrets of its ancestry, the 

 vastness of the region it occupies, its size and value to man, its beauty 

 and capacity of adapting itself to new surroundings, all make the 

 Douglas Fir an important inhabitant of the forests of western Amer- 

 ica — forests remarkable for the variety, size and value of the cone- 

 bearing trees of which they are principally composed. 



The Douglas Fir is distinguished from the true Firs or Abies by 

 its petioled leaves, which, in falling, leave oval scars, by its pendu- 

 lous cones with pei'sistent scales, and by its seeds, which are not fur- 

 nished with resin vesicles. It looks, moreover, in general appear- 

 ance, more like a Hemlock than a Fir; it differs from the Hemlock, 

 however, in the absence of the permanent, persistent bases of the 

 fallen leaves which roughen the branchlets of all Hemlock trees, and 

 in its much larger cones, which may be alwaj's recognized by the 

 large acutely two-lobed and long-pointed bracts extended beyond the 

 scales. It can be readily known, too, by the flat, distinctly stalked 

 leaves which are somewhat two-ranked by a slight twist at their 

 base. 



Where climatic conditions favor the growth of large trees, as 

 they do in the humid region of western Washington and Oregon, or 



